Books by James Harpur

1900s London. For Patrick Bowley, fresh from rural Galway, a place of mind-expanding encounters with mystics, suffragettes, theosophists and free-thinkers. Drawn into the world of such luminaries as Jiddu Krishnamurti, Annie Besant and W B Yeats, it seems that Patrick is on a quest for meaning that will bear fruit. But a bruising failure in romance leaves him disillusioned with London and its class divisions and, in spiritual crisis, he flees to the familiarity of rural Ireland. But Patrick finds no peace and as Europe slides towards war and Ireland towards rebellion, his longing to shut out the world is challenged by a vocation to preach peace in Ireland that will not be quieted. And so he begins an epic pilgrimage to Dublin, arriving days before the 1916 Easter Rising. It is here that Patrick's journey reaches a gripping climax - one that finally reveals the true nature of the 'pathless country'. Winner of the J G Farrell Award and an Irish Writers' Centre Novel Fair Award, James Harpur's debut novel deftly weaves a story of spiritual awakening with fin de siecle alternative thought, love and political history, exploring how conscience and spiritual quest survive in an atmosphere of war, sectarianism and class hierarchy.

James Harpur entered a boy's boarding school in the 1970s and survived to tell the tale. Powerful, poignant and humorous, the poems in The Examined Life re-create a 'vale of soul-making' that, with its tragedy and comedy, heroes and villains, is like a microcosm of life itself.

Pilgrimage in the Western world is enjoying a growing popularity, perhaps more so now than at any time since the Middle Ages. The Pilgrim Journey tells the fascinating story of how pilgrimage was born and grew in antiquity, how it blossomed in the Middle Ages and faltered in subsequent centuries, only to re-emerge stronger than before in modern times. James Harpur describes the pilgrim routes and sacred destinations past and present, the men and women making the journey, the many challenges of travel, and the spiritual motivations and rewards. He also explores the traditional stages of pilgrimage, from preparation, departure, and the time on the road, to the arrival at the shrine and the return home. At the heart of pilgrimage is a spiritual longing that has existed from time immemorial. The Pilgrim Journey is both the colourful chronicle of numerous pilgrims of centuries past searching for heaven on earth, and an illuminating guide for today's spiritual traveller.